Hard No: Secret Baby Enemies to Lovers Romance by Hazel Parker (fun to read txt) 📗

Today, I’m putting in time at my first restaurant, which has in my mind begun to feel like a neglected child in the shadow of my third. I have to give equal love to all of them if I expect them to grow.

When restaurant number three earned its Michelin stars, an interviewer from a food magazine had asked me if I was interested in opening up a fourth establishment. I had hinted that anything was possible, but in reality, I don’t know how I could do that and not burst into flames.

I’m already stretched as thin as I can possibly go. The thought of delegating head chef duties freezes my blood, even though I have to do it every week anyway. Perhaps it’s the thought of having to rely on yet more people that makes me balk at the idea of opening restaurant number four.

I have good people working at all three restaurants, the best. It’s just that I have this compulsion to be there, right in the middle of it, overseeing things and driving them forwards.

So, for the time being at least, three seems to be the magic number.

Strangely, I don’t second guess the wisdom of this situation with Trent. Before him, the idea of seeing someone had been laughable, the notion of juggling my career with a “steady” boyfriend a joke. But here I am, going in at four o’clock in the morning so that I can leave early tonight.

“Girl,” Tira had teased me during one of our phone conversations, “you have got it bad.”

Do I? I’m so rusty at the dating game that I can’t even tell where my joints begin and end. Part of me is feeling swept along by all of this, and it is a scary feeling. Another part of me feels that things are going amazingly well.

The largest part of me, though, is looking forward to tonight.

Trent has been coy about what we will be doing, responding to my texts with a vague “you’ll see.” He’s not much of a phone talker or lengthy texter, which is fine with me. I suspect he has a well-defined sense of the value of time and respects mine, which I appreciate to no end.

The day passes in a blur of activity, and the next thing I know, it’s going on five o’clock. Andy, my number-one assistant at my first restaurant, practically shoos me out the door.

“Go on,” he urges. “Don’t make me get the broom.”

“I’m going, I’m going,” I say, checking things as I make my exit path through the kitchen to the back door. “I just want to see if—”

“I’m telling you, go, boss,” Andy insists, making flapping motions with his hands. “We’re good! Go and have a good time!”

Professional kitchens may be busy places, but they’re also like little communities. A lot of gossip can be exchanged on the small, infrequent breaks that come up during the course of the day, and I suppose the lion’s share lately has been about me.

My staff has been smiling at me a lot, especially the other women. I realize that I have been doing a lot of smiling myself, which is uncommon for me. It’s not that I’m usually unhappy or grim or anything; it’s just that I’m always so focused, I stay pretty straight-faced.

The atmosphere in my kitchens has always been dedicated, almost to the point of being over-serious, but in the past couple of days, it has seemed lighter, approaching positively cheerful. When the boss is happy, I suppose everyone’s happy.

As Andy closes the door on my triple-checking with the insistence that everything is under control, I realize that that is just the thing—I am happy. Recent circumstances have filled in a part of my life that I hadn’t been aware was missing. I have been driven, challenged, and fulfilled, all things I have wanted my whole life, but happy? Looking at the years in retrospect, I have to wonder.

Is it right to sink all of your time, attention, and affection into one source? In my case, this basket into which I’ve been piling all my eggs is my career. It’s paid off on some levels—success, expansion, critical acclaim. On other levels, though, I’ve been living an impoverished life and haven’t even been aware of it.

I’m aware of it now, though. A month ago, Andy would never have been able to usher me out the door the way he had just now. If the doors were going to be open—and they were, without fail—I would be there. I have never taken so much as a single sick day in years, mostly due to the fact that I don’t take the time to get sick.

As I make my way home, I get a text from Tira asking for an update on plans for the evening. She is getting way too much vicarious pleasure out of this whole experience. I call her up.

“Make sure you wear your tearaway underwear,” she answers by way of greeting when she picks up.

“We’re going out to dinner,” I say, “not to some cheap motel out on the interstate.”

“Noted. Still, I hope you’re going to put some more work into what you wear this time. No band apparel, in other words.”

“Copy that.”

“Still no hints as to what he has planned for the evening?”

“Nope. I don’t have a clue.”

She laughs. “You sound remarkably okay with that.”

“Not much choice. He’s keeping his cards pretty close to the vest on this outing.”

“So he could be planning on flying the two of you to Paris for a couple of hours?”

“No, nothing that exotic. I told him I had to be up early tomorrow morning, so he promised we’d go somewhere local so I could be in bed at a decent hour.”

“You party